


Truths

by aannaalisaa



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fade Dreams, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Internal Conflict, Melancholy, Memories, Post-Betrayal, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Trust Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23368063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aannaalisaa/pseuds/aannaalisaa
Summary: Would you kill someone you loved if it meant saving the world?Lavellan is hurt, but pride stops her from giving into the pain. Anger keeps her moving through mournful regrets, hard feelings and way-too-familiar ghosts haunting her dreams. A series of short vignettes, beginning post-Inquisition and continuing post-Trespasser.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas, Female Mage Lavellan & Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	1. Home

“You’ve changed, da’len.”

She looked up from the book in her hands. The dim light inside the cave made it difficult to read anyways. 

“Did I? I didn’t notice, but I guess that’s how it goes… ”

The elder woman in front of her took some time to consider what to say, as she always did. 

“You look...older.”

“That I am.” She answered. “You’ve aged as well.”

“Of course, and I was already old when you left. It only got worse, now I look like a crone.”

The young lady laughed softly. “You’re not a crone. One could say you look wiser, like a true keeper should - you never looked the part.”

Keeper Deshanna smiled. “I’m happy you’re back, da’len.”

“It’s temporary I’m afraid. But I’m happy as well.” She looked around her. “I’ve missed it.”

The cave’s stone walls were covered with heavy hand-sewed tapestry, deep crimson, gold thread and dark green silk: opulent, almost out of place in the sparsely furnished den. The fire crackled quietly in the middle, surrounded by large stones; in a corner there was the old basket where Deshanna kept her concoctions, dried elfroot and other medical herbs. Then a small wooden table, knives and spoons, some old books, a bed made of hay and bear furs - and, finally, a small rock statue of a sitting wolf, right near the cave entrance. The young woman attentively kept her sight away from it.

She closed the book in her lap and stared at Deshanna for some time, while she was carefully sewing some kind of cloth.

“How am I changed? Except for the older part, of course.” 

The old woman looked up from her work and met her stare. Deshanna had always had the most inquisitive eyes she’d ever seen, calm but stern, almost too deep to look at.

“You have more scars than I remembered - even though the most noticeable one is missing.”

The young lady brought a hand to her, now bare, cheek. “I was wondering when you’d’ve asked.”

“Where did your vallaslin go, da’len? How is it possible?”

Suddenly, the cave felt way too warm - suffocating, almost. 

“It is a story I’d rather not tell.”

Deshanna looked frustrated. “I gave you that vallaslin myself, dear: Mythal’s gift, from me to you, my one and only First. I never thought I’d seen it gone from your face.”

“Me neither, harhen.” She took a pause to breathe. “Someone took it from me.”

“Took? Varja, that’s not how it works. Did you remove it yourself?”

Did she? Varja closed her eyes and saw the cove once again, washed in moonlight, the still water, everything quiet and…

She did say yes.

So, in a way, it was her undoing.

“Someone told me it was possible and asked me if I wanted to get rid of it. I accepted.”

Deshanna sighed and lowered her eyes. “Why’d you do such a thing?”

She wasn't angry, she could tell by the lines in her face - still soft, but somehow deeper. 

Disappointed, that’s what she looked like.

Varja didn’t know how to answer. The truth would’ve been complicated, and she was not ready to delve into it. Most likely never would be.

She knew the questions would have come, eventually. She had accepted it as soon as she decided to pay her clan a visit: there had been a weak hope there, one that said maybe no one would’ve dared to ask, and just plainly ignored it - maybe even going unnoticed. 

But Deshanna wasn’t a person to avoid things: she ran straight into them, hoping to make them better, an inner desire to try and solve everyone’s problems. That’s why she was Keeper, and a good one as well.

What to do? Lie? Avoidance? Rebuttal?

“I...did it for love.”

Truth. 

Some of it, at least.

The old woman set aside her cloth and needle and settled her hands in her lap. She looked at Varja with a soft stare, and smiled. A sad smile.

“You won’t tell me more. I can see it. And, maybe, I don’t want you to, da’len.” A pause, and a long breath. “Love is powerful. Beautiful. And I can’t say I’m not happy you’ve finally felt it - that’s something I’ve always wished for you. But I’m...shocked that it could make you do something like that, abandoning your heritage. Erasing such an essential part of you.”

Varja’s eyes were burning. “ I know.”

Deshanna moved closer, kneeling by her side. She embraced her and Varja rested her head on the old woman's shoulder: her hair smelled of hay and lavender, exactly as she remembered. She kept her tears at bay, squeezing her eyes as hard as she could.

“I’ve missed you so much.” She mumbled.

“Me too, _da’len_.”

* * *

It was pitch black outside the cave, the moonlight hidden by the thick foliage of the forest. Varja stood still for some time, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. She breathed slowly and heavily, trying to get rid of the knot stuck in her throat. Her entire body felt heavy, but she knew sleeping was out of the question for the time being.

As soon as she was capable of discerning the path along the trees, she started walking deeper into the forest and toward the outskirts of the camp.

Seeing Deshanna after such a long time had been the hardest thing of her visit so far: she thought she was prepared for it, but she obviously wasn’t. The cool breeze made her feel better, and moving after sitting for such a long time was pleasant. She couldn’t remember the last time she had time to just walk around, aimlessly. Years, probably. 

The forest still felt familiar, even after all those years: it seemed like it had been waiting for her to come back, silent and stoic. She was grateful for the quietness. 

The last month had been a loud chaos, made of useless meetings, shouting matches with Fereldan diplomats and insufferable Orlesian court parties. The thing she hated most was pretending everything was finally fine, when it obviously wasn’t: she had never been good at lying, but her job demanded her to. White lies, of course, carefully crafted statements aimed at keeping everyone at arms length, projecting an aura of affidability and control. 

_They count on us all to protect them from the truth, Inquisitor_ , Leliana always told her.

And the truth was that the peace they all fought so hard for was now hanging by a very fine thread: Ferelden was starting to become hostile toward her soldiers, and the Orlesian kept washing her with fake praises, trying to lure her organization under the Empress’ shadow. It was becoming tiresome, those dances in between fires, trying to please everyone around her: the Exalted Council was a few weeks away, and it already lingered on her neck like an axe. Sometimes, she found herself missing the Breach, a time when the enemy was obvious and the fight righteous - now it felt like confronting the wind, whimsical and unpredictable. 

She looked at her left hand, bare and pale: the Anchor had been bothering her a lot in the last months, and she was unsure of what that meant. The sky was scarred but clear, and the scattered demons infiltrations were carefully kept under control by her soldiers. On that side, the battle seemed won. But still, sometimes, she could feel electricity lingering in her palm, sending waves of heat along her arm, burning and humming. 

She reached a small clearing in the forest, washed in moonlight. She stared at the full moon and held her hand toward it, up to the sky, exactly as she did many many times two years before. Could she open a rift if she wanted to? Probably.

The familiar green dim light started glowing under her skin, and she felt the usual surge of power running through her veins. It was intoxicating.

She missed it.

She often fantasized of getting rid of annoying political clerks who came to Skyhold to accuse her of non existent wrongdoings by opening a rift above their head, locking them up for good. She never _actually_ did it, of course, but the thought was entertaining.

Dorian agreed on that part. 

_“Think of how easier diplomacy would be, that way! Josephine would be thrilled.”_

_“I doubt that, Dorian. She would find it quite disrespectful of courtly manners.”_

_“Probably. But it would look marvelous- I always loved that hue of green.”_

Varja missed him the most out of all her companions. His presence had always given her a confidence and calm that she hadn’t found anywhere else. 

Al least, not since...

She shook her head and closed her eyes tightly, trying to erase the image from her mind, as she did every time some old fragments of memory came back to haunt her. It never worked. She would’ve sealed the memories into a rift, if it had been possible. Sent them off into the void, away from her. She really just wished for him to go away.

It had been getting better with the years, and the job kept her busy enough to fill her mind up with other, sometimes way too demanding, thoughts. But others still lingered in the back of her head. A ghost with blurry edges, staring, still, and cold as ice.

The wind stroked her bare cheeks, and she felt a shiver along her spine. She opened her eyes: the moon, the clearing, and the trees were all still there, unchanged. 

The ghost was gone.

She turned back towards the camp.


	2. Two Storms

She was in Crestwood once more. 

Still waters, cold air, blooming flowers - all washed in moonlight. 

She didn’t want to be there, but her mind decided to bring her back.

Luckily, she was alone. 

Apparently, she still had enough control on her dreams to keep him out, whatever version of him. But why here? Why not the last time she’d seen him? That had been just as painful. Crestwood had been the beginning of the end, of course, but the memory filled her with so much anger that she tried to avoid it as much as possible. She would have preferred a sad one: one of the many times she cried herself to sleep and hid it from everyone, one of the times she couldn’t even bear to hear his name without flinching, as if she’d been hit. 

Sadness was easy, and Crestwood had been everything but that.

She'd wanted to smack him, and she probably should have. That was one of her many regrets - not punching him in the face. What would’ve been his reaction? Probably measured outrage, quiet disdain - maybe some hissing.

She really couldn’t picture it.

There was something she said that seemed to linger in the air there, something she blurted out before running away from him. 

_ Tell me you don’t love me. _

It would have been so much easier that way.

_ I can’t do that. _

That was the end of it all - even worse than unrequited feelings - just plain and conscient rejection. No closure, just questions lingering in the air between them, destined to remain unanswered .

After two years she had finally come to a conclusion: he lied. Plain, simple. He never loved her, or, at least, not as much as she did. She wasn’t enough for him. So he fled, as soon as he could. She hated him for that.

She wanted to say that was all she felt for him now - hatred.

But yet, her mind brought her to Crestwood once more. Sometimes what we wish for is not what we get - and for as much as she wanted to forget him, she simply couldn’t.

Ignore him, of course. Pretending he didn’t exist at all even worked sometimes. 

But then she always found herself doing it all again, hoping for...something.

She was facing the water, and stared into it for a long time: her reflection was there, pale and faded, shimmering almost. And then, out of nowhere, here he was, standing behind her. She closed her eyes immediately, as she couldn’t bear to look at him. Even if it was a mere shadow reflected in muddy waters. Suddenly, tears were pushing behind her eyelids. She felt stupid.

_ Leave me alone. _

And he did. 

Without a word, she felt him leaving, just as he had appeared. 

She opened her eyes and her reflection was now alone. The feeling of that night washed all over her once again - a dull and suffocated ache in her chest.

She reached toward the water with her hand and turned it into ice, so that she didn’t have to stare at herself crying - it took her no effort, as all magic did in the Fade. She could hear demons approaching - shrieking in the distance, creeping at the edges of her dream, ready to take advantage of this moment of weakness. 

_ Time to wake up, Varja. We’ve got work to do. _

* * *

The days after the Exalted Council had been weirdly quiet. Varja’s stump was tightly bandaged and slowly healing, thanks to the help of the Divine’s healers. 

One of them was a quiet girl, probably fereldan, who always seemed scared to touch her. She guessed it was not squeamishness causing her to avoid her gaze every time her bandages needed changing. “Are you afraid of me?” Varja asked her one morning. It came off aggressive even if she didn't mean it. The girl looked up from her stump, eyes filled with discomfort. She was shaking. 

“You closed the sky, my lady. And everyone told me you can tore it open as well.”

Varja appreciated the straightforward manner in which she answered, and smiled at her. 

“You needn’t be afraid no more. I won't be going around sealing rifts any longer, or opening them for that matters.”

“How so?”

She let out a quiet laugh. It seemed obvious that not everyone knew about the actual technicalities behind her power, but she had never thought about it before now. 

“My hand is gone.”

The girl seemed confused. “Why can't you use the other one? Or a staff? Isn't that how magic works?”

Good point. 

“Maybe.” she lied. “I guess we'll see.”

The Anchor was gone, once and for all. It took its owner to do it, and seeing him again in person had been gut wrenching. She still had trouble considering all the things he told her, how she felt about them - how they had to say goodbye once more. The truth was finally out there, but it was anything but what she expected and, most of all, hard to accept. At first she thought it all to be lies, the delusions of a mad man. But he wasn't mad at all, on the contrary, she had never seen him so honest, so open about everything. After a year of half truths and omissions, it was good to finally have the whole picture on the man. It wasn't a nice picture, but still. 

_ Don’t make me do this.  _

She felt like crying by the time he had told her his plan to destroy the entire world. 

_ You know I have to stop you.  _

_ I know, vhenan. And I’m sorry.  _

Then he took her arm and disappeared. 

She didn't want to admit that she had wanted to kiss him from the first moment she saw him on that cliff, as pathetic of a desire as it was. But when he leaned in, his lips were burning, probably because of the magic that was flowing through him and into her hand. 

It felt different, like he could have easily killed her with just that kiss. That's how powerful he had become, going around turning people into stone with just the blink of an eye. 

The memory of her strange apostate, quietly holding her at night and caressing her hair, was gone now - replaced by shining armors and burning kisses that left a metallic aftertaste on her lips. Replaced by the legends her mother told her at night, by horror stories she and her peers made up by the fire, by a man that was going to destroy everything she knew because he could not live with his own mistakes. 

A man she had to stop. At any cost. 

Could she do it? If the opportunity presented itself for her to stop him, once and for all, would she rise to the occasion? 

She had no idea. 

The fereldan girl finished mending her wound and left the room in perfect silence. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go again with new Solavellan Global Quarantine content!  
> These are two vignettes I decided to post together. I think they work nicely paired up like this.  
> Feel free to leave comments, even to just point out grammatical mistakes - again, non-native speaker here.  
> Thank you for reading! I'll update quite often this week I think, since I have some stuff lined up - after that, I don't really know, we'll see.


	3. A Reminder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is very short (and self-indulgent) - but I think it needs to go by itself.

The careful circles they slowly threaded around each other took a long time to entangle them. She took the first, dreadful step, unknowingly, convinced to be stuck in a dream.

It didn’t feel real, and she felt brave enough to take the leap. When he reciprocated, grabbing her and bringing her mouth back to his, kissing her ferociously, she was even more convinced of being in a dream. The man that held her felt so different from the one waiting for her in the waking world, a much tamer and moderate one, and not as nearly desperate to have her body entirely crushed against his. 

She had never been kissed like that before. 

Romance had always felt like an elusive thing to her, something people loved to ramble about for hours, chasing it, giving up parts of themselves to obtain: a sacrifice of some sort, a useless pining, lacking any sort of appeal. Yes, fooling around wasn't that bad, sometimes it could even be fun - but other things, deeper feelings, more serious entanglements, had alway been out of her interests. 

But with him it felt different from the very beginning. He was handsome, in an odd way; that was one of the first things she thought when they met. Way taller than most elves, broader shoulders, sharp jawline - even the baldness hadn't bothered her. 

She knew right away that he was older than her, at least fifteen years her senior. Varric often teased her about it, Dorian too - but she didn't care. How laughable that felt now that their true age difference was known - if it could even still be considered as that.

The more time passed, the more the whole situation made her want to lie on the ground, laugh hysterically until her lungs finally gave in. Her self respect was the only thing that had kept her from caving into the desperation. That, and the certainty that once she’d given into the pain it'd be impossible to crawl out of it. What she felt needed to be kept at bay, for the time being, otherwise she'd go insane. 

He took her arm, her trust, her heart - but she'd die before he’d take her mind. 


	4. Heavy Reading

All of Minrathous had a peculiar smell: sandalwood, fresh bread and blood - mostly. Of course, the closer you got to the high town the blood smell intensified drastically, and you could also spot some draining at the side of the roads. 

Dorian despised all of it and made no effort to conceal it at all. 

"A despicable spectacle, isn't it?" He asked, turning around slightly to look at her face, hidden under a light hooded cape. 

"The city looks gorgeous so far, Dorian."

He scuffed. "As long as you don't look closely."

They were climbing the narrow high town road towards Dorian's estate, Varya disguised as a servant, in the hope spies did not catch a glimpse of the former Inquisitor visiting the capital of Tevinter. They figured entering by the main door was less suspicious than sneaking around in dark alleys at night.

Varja's decision to finally leave the Inquisition’s hideout in the Free Marches had come about just a few nights before, after a very shaken and tense conversation with an informer that had travelled all the way from the border with Tevinter to bring her news from Dorian. Things that were best not written, and neither spoke of thought their communication crystal apparently.

The informer told her of numerous sightings of unmarked elves in the forests, some from the city, some clearly dalish even without their vallaslin to distinguish them. But, most important of all, sightings of the Wolf himself - brief, but clear nonetheless. 

Dorian made her open the gigantic doors to his mansion, like a proper elven servant would, and then they were inside, finally away from indiscreet eyes. Varja removed her hood while Dorian put wards all around the heavy doors. 

"You can't be too careful lately." 

"Clearly…" Varja answered, looking amused.

"Something's funny, my dear? Care to share?" 

"I've never been here before. In your house. It looks… a lot like you." 

Velvet golden and plum drapes over the windows, wall-high bookshelves, heavy chandeliers and rich tapestries everywhere - and that was just the entry hall. 

"If you mean it looks handsome and classy, then you're absolutely correct, it does. But now, darling, we need to speak business." 

"Actually, I think I need a drink before." she said, feeling tired from all the travelling.

Now it was Dorian that looked amused. "Oh, really?" 

"C'mon, indulge me." 

They sat in what Varja thought had to be a studio of some kind, with more books, a big heavy desk and leather chairs. Everything dimly lit by candles and the last lights of the day coming in through the open windows, the hot wind of a summer night drifting in. Now that they could take a proper look at each other, Varja realized how tired her friend looked: pale, long beard, heavy dark circles. She took a long sip at the red wine he served before commenting on it. "You look tired, Dorian." 

He stopped mid sip and stared coldly at her. "You've looked better as well, dear." 

She let out a quiet laugh. "Well of course. I've been living like a hermit for the last few months, showering and grooming are not priorities during hideouts." 

"This color does absolutely nothing for you."

She passed a hand through her now dark and matted long hair; she knew she had to dye it again soon. The color was starting to fade, from dark reddish brown to greyish mud, her blonde roots showing. It has been a necessity, covering her almost silver, way too recognizable, hair. She had noticed she drew much less attention as a brunette. 

"I don't mind it too much, it's just hair." 

Dorian snorted. "Yes, of course, hair that makes you look terribly ordinary, that is. You're everything but ordinary. Tomorrow, let me fetch someone to fix it up for you, yes?" 

She stifled a laugh. "Be my guest. I don't have the energy to think about hair right now." 

She finished the last sip of red wine and cuddled the empty glass in her lap, leaning back on the chair. She hadn't felt this comfortable in quite some time. Dorian had this effect on her, and she was grateful for it. 

"Should we talk business or do you want to talk about it in the morning? There's no rush." He said, with a slightly concerned tone. Varja looked at him smiling, and put the glass on the table between them. 

"Refill my glass and we can talk business all night. Even though there's not much to discuss, except the usual chit chatting we' ve been intercepting for months now." 

Dorian grabbed the bottle of wine and generously poured it in both his and her glasses. "Care to sum it up for me? "

"Elves disappearing, running away to the woods, mostly in the Free Marches according to Varric' s informers. Not as major here in Tevinter, but there have been some…unusual sightings." 

"Unusual how?" 

"Wolves, mainly. Large packs of wolves, sometimes on their own, sometimes led by a big one, with white fur." 

"Sounds about right." Dorian scoffed. 

"The weirdest thing is the stealing, though. Mostly in alienages, but I've heard similar reports from various dalish clans as well."

"What are they stealing exactly?" 

"All sorts of stuff. Which made us question the matter's relevancy at first, but then a pattern emerged and we felt suspicious about it. Every theft occurs briefly after the disappearance of some elf, both voluntary and unexplained, and along with weapons, food and all that kind of things, books are always stolen as well."

Dorian seemed confused. "Books? Do you think that’s what they’re after? "

"They must be, since there's always a book of this type listed in the items that have been stolen. Some of them we had in Skyhold's library, so I recognized the titles. And also… "

Dorian lifted a hand to stop his friend's rambling. "Wait a minute, dear. You're saying Solas is recruiting elves all around Thedas just to get…books? I mean, I'm an avid reader myself, but it seems pretty far-fetched to go all this way for reading material he could easily steal from the University of Orlais, don't you think? "

Varja sighed, took a sip of wine and took out a folded piece of paper from her shirt, tucked in her undergarments. 

" What's this? " Dorian asked, while she handed it to him to read. 

" Just look. "

The mage flattened the wrinkled paper on the table before reading it. " History books, most of them at least. Some interesting choices, for sure - I don't see Solas as a blood magic type of mage, definitely not after I saw him petrify people at sight. He definitely doesn't need to dabble in the dark arts." 

"Yes, of course he doesn't. But someone else could, other mages." 

Dorian lifted his eyes and stared at his friend. 

"Do you seriously think he would teach his little eleven friends blood magic? What for? Fighting? Is he seriously in such need of an army, or…" Varja finally saw the same realization that she had dawn on Dorian’s face. 

"You think he's going to try and enter the Fade with blood magic, go to the Black City and…”

“Tear down the Veil and kill us all? Yeah, I’m pretty positive." 

Dorian sighed. "And you think he's planning on doing it in Tevinter." 

"I'm not sure. He's got the Eluvians for what we know, so he's pretty much free to go everywhere. But all the stolen books are somehow tied to Tevinter history, blood magic and the First Blight - and most of the wolves sightings happened along the edges of the Silent Plains and near Arlathan's Forest, so…”

They shared a moment of silence. Varja sipped her wine while looking outside the window. The sun had finally set down on the city, and the only sounds were bells in the distance. A beautiful summer night. 

“I think I have an idea of where he's going to attempt to try and tear down the Veil. But I think he's searching for something here in Tevinter first. I don't know what that is, but I hope I can stop him before he finds it. "

Her friend gave her a stern look. 

"You hope  _ we _ can stop him. You're not alone in this, Varja. Remember that. "

Varja sighed and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles - a headache was creeping right at the back of her head, maybe from the wine or just travel fatigue. " Yes, of course.  _ We _ ."

Dorian downed the last of his wine and stood up from his chair, circling around the table and putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. She looked up and found weary eyes and furrowed brows staring at her. 

"I do mean it. You have help, you have me and many others working on this. You've done remarkable things so far, my dear, and you'll continue doing them - but you're not going to do them on your own, understood?" 

Varja grabbed Dorian's hand from her shoulder and kissed it. "Thank you, my friend."

"You're welcome, dear. But now it's time you tie this mess of a hair up and go to sleep. We'll plan tomorrow, after a good rest. I had the maid set up my most beautiful guest room for you, I know you'll love it." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> March, the endless month, is finally over! Revel in the (small) joy of a new month with a new chapter. We finally arrive in Tevinter and things start to get more - let's say stuff gets finally moving, shall we? Hope you enjoyed!


	5. A Dream of Snow

In her dreams Skyhold always looked slightly different from how she remembered it. The walls seemed taller, the garden’s flowers were always in full bloom, and the mountains encircling it had way too much snow on them. 

It looked like a picture, a pretty thing to hang on a wall somewhere - something to marvel at, while saying,  _ that was my home, once. _

She had left in a hurry, shortly after the Inquisition's disbandment, but the place would pop up in her dreams from time to time, as if she hadn't said goodbye properly and it still wanted to house her as it did for so many wonderful and terrifying years. 

She wandered in the main hall, looking at the vaulted ceiling, trying to spot Vivienne standing at the baluster looking down on her, waving - but in her dreams Skyhold was alway empty. No Varric messing around with Sera and Bull in the tavern, no Dorian holed up in the library, no Josephine arguing with Cullen and Leliana about some futile, but absolutely urgent, matter in the War Room. 

What she always found was deafening silence. 

Of course she tried to avoid the rotunda at all times, as she did in the last month before Corypheus' defeat. The last time she had been in there was a few days after that, not voluntarily of course. Someone, probably Josie, had asked her what to do with the stuff Solas had left behind: some books, a quill, pigments and brushes, scribbled paper and so on. Useless stuff. She had checked on it just to see if there was anything useful, maybe some indications on where he had gone. Of course she had hoped for some sort of message for her, a dumb wish she tried to suppress as soon as it came to mind. Naturally, there had been nothing of that sort - useful or sentimental. She had it all tossed out the same day, and, most importantly, had the murals covered with black cloths, hanging from above. They were too beautiful to destroy, but she couldn't stand the sight of them either. Would they be there in her dreams? Or would she see the black cloth hanging over them, as when she left? 

Curiosity lured her in, as it often happened while sleepwalking in the Fade. To her relief, when she entered the rotunda she found it completely emptied out, no furniture, no torches - and most importantly, no murals, just plain scraped walls. She looked up and saw the sky above her, the roof completely tore apart as if destroyed by fire, or an explosion. As soon as she noticed the damage, snow started falling down slowly, and then faster, enough to cover the floor in a matter of seconds. The air in the entire room went cold, and Varja found herself shivering. She knew right away something was wrong, probably a demon or something of the likes of it. 

What she was sure of was that she needed to wake up, fast, and that had always been difficult for her. She closed her eyes and focused on breathing, trying to reconnect with her body, tucked under thick velvet covers in a beautiful bed, in Dorian's fancy estate, in hot and humid Tevinter. 

She was nowhere to be found. 

Panic started to creep in, and she made sure not to let it take over by keeping her breathing in check. She just had to stay calm and find her rhythm, the way back out of her mind and into her body. 

After a few minutes, she finally felt it. Her slowed down heartbeat and her stiff limbs were coming back to her, or rather she was coming back to them. 

But then she felt something take hold of her - like a tight rope around her chest, pulling away from her sleeping body. She opened her eyes to find herself in the empty, snowed in rotunda once more. She turned around towards the hall, and she saw a familiar-looking shadow, creeping in the entryway, staring at her in silence. 

"Go away, demon. I've had enough of your cheap tricks. Leave me alone, or I'll have to hurt you." 

The shadow kept looking, unbothered by her remark - so she prepared to fight, summoning her staff. 

"Don't make me say it again, demon. Leave, or be destroyed. I mean it." 

She tried to keep her voice from shaking, but the fear and the cold wouldn't let her. She kept her battle stance, staff in hand, ready to strike against whatever demon had decided to bother her once again. The shadow didn’t move. 

"Well...you've asked for it." 

She shot a bolt of lighting. Nothing lethal, just something to scare it off. She felt horror when the shadow completely deviated the lighting into the sky above her, as if it was nothing. She striked again, and again, and again - just to see all her lighting bolts incurring into the same fate. 

"Stop it, please." the shadow said, with a once again too familiar voice. 

"Silence, demon!" she screamed back at it, keeping up with the fire. She channeled all the static around herself to charge her staff as much as she could, and hit the shadow with all of her might. Finally, it stepped out of the entryway to dodge her lighting.

And that's when she saw him, hidden under a black cloak - masked as a shadow. 

Her stomach turned on itself, and suddenly she could barely hear anything besides the sound of her heart, beating like a drum. Rage filled every single figment of her body, as she kept striking him with lighting and thunder - furiously and uncontrollably, until the rotunda was filled with smoke and static.

When the smoke set he wasn't in front of her anymore. For some reason she knew that he was behind her, a few steps back. Shame filled her as tears rolled down her face. Every muscle in her body was so tense it shivered. 

She wanted to smother him. 

"Can I talk to you, Inquisitor?" 

That was it.

Simmering with rage, she quickly turned around and struck with her staff in a sweeping motion, hoping to hit him in the head at the very least. Instead, he caught the staff mid-blow, stopping her dead in her tracks. She quickly stepped back, and he instantly released the staff from his grip. She didn't want him to see her crying. What consoled her was that he didn't want to show his entire face either, covered as he was by the cloak. 

"You're angry. I don't blame you, you have all reasons to be." 

She didn't answer. She wasn't going to let him hear her voice cracking. She turned her back to him, stared at the empty walls. 

"I need to warn you, Inquisitor. You need to leave Tevinter, as soon as possible."

How did he know already? Even with all the carefulness of this world, she still wasn't able to outsmart him and his damned spies. 

She couldn't stand hearing his voice, so she started walking and exited the rotunda, back into the great hall. He followed, of course. She knew he was the one keeping her from waking up, he was powerful enough to do so.

"You don't understand. Minrathus is not safe for you right now, it's not safe for anyone. You need to leave." 

She stifled a bitter laugh.  _ What a joke, caring about my well-being now. _ She kept walking, out into the yard and down the stone stairs. 

" _ You _ need to leave. Let me go, immediately." 

Her voice was now steady, the tears dried off with the cold air. Once she reached the bottom of the stairs, she finally decided to turn around, to face him. He was at the top, staring down at her. The cloak covered most of his face and she could not see his eyes, just his mouth, closed in a straight tight line. "I understand that…" 

"No! You don't understand anything, and that's why we're in this situation in the first place." Anger simmered in her chest, warming her face. 

"I don't trust you, and I don't care for your suggestions. Go away! Now!”

And as she finished the sentence, he was gone, and Skyhold with him. She woke up in Dorian's beautiful guest room, covered in cold sweat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm convinced Lavellan would hate to have Solas haunt most of her dreams - after all, she's been dumped and mutilated by him. There's a bit of conflicted feelings going on here, and that's what I like the most about this pairing - well, this and the sheer drama of it, of course. Thanks you for reading! Stay safe


	6. Chasing Wolves

She had never felt more annoyed with her metallic arm ever before. 

It was a masterpiece, a miracle of enchantment and smithery - but the relentless Tevinter sun had quickly turned it into a scorching hot rod. Her stump burned where iron met her flesh, so she kept hovering a hand over it while casting a very subtle and soothing healing magic. That was all she could do for the time being, that and suck it up. Dorian had insisted on accompanying her into the city slums but she had refused - if she was to blend into Minrathous’ crowd a Magister was exactly what she didn’t need.  _ You are not what I would call...discreet, my friend. _

He had laughed.  _ I cannot argue with that. I’m way too unforgettable to go unnoticed. _

So she had fixed herself up with simple clothes and a cape, covered her metallic arm with a long glove and hidden her daggers in her boots. It was unlikely someone would recognize her as the Inquisitor, with the dark hair and the hidden stump, but you never knew what could happen in such a big city. And Tevinter’s capital was massive. Dorian’s estate was in the high part of town, and all she could see from her room’s windows was a sea of rooftops, narrow alleys and large squares where the market probably took place. Every street was bustling with people of all kinds: young Circle mages out and about, clad in their towers uniforms; merchants and sellers of every imaginable goods, holed up in their small shops carved inside the fronts of buildings; elven slaves and servants hurrying up and down, surely to satisfy their masters’ requests. Those were the kind of people she was looking for, Tevinter elves - whom, according to her sources, were the same the Dread Wolf was after as well. 

There was no alienage in Minrathous, Dorian told her, but the slums downtown were where most of low-grade elven slaves and liberati lived and worked. She honestly didn’t know what to expect, but she had a hunch that it was the perfect place where to start.

It took her slightly less than an hour to get to the inner-city. The landscape was now very different from the shiny and luscious high town, to the point it seemed to have walked into another city entirely. Dark and dirty streets, surrounded by rundown houses and beggars’ tents; malnourished kids running around screaming, their mothers following after them carrying buckets of clean water. 

Looking at them she couldn’t avoid but to think of her mother.

She was born in Kirkwall’s alienage, and spent most of her youth between city elves. Then she had met her father, a Dalish of the Lavellan clan, and left with him. She never turned back from her decision of leaving the alienage, and she had effortlessly embraced the dalish customs and lifestyle. Or at least that was what Deshanna had told her when she was old enough to ask. Both her parents had died shortly after her birth - two of the many victims of a raid that had decimated clan Lavellan and left it scarred for many years. She didn’t really remember them, and so she had always felt like the clan itself had been her parents: all of the women her mother, the men her father. But now, surrounded by all those city elves, the thought of her had briefly come back. 

Looking around, she was grateful for her missing tattoos. A dalish would have been everything but inconspicuous among so many bare faced elves. 

She spent what felt like hours roaming the slums, observing and taking in all of the people’s faces and gazes. After some time she could tell some were becoming suspicious of her, staring at her from behind ajar doors and dirty windows. She felt wary.

Suddenly, an elf stood in her way, a young, bare-faced man with red, matted hair and small, dark eyes. He squinted at her.

Varja kept her composure. “Greetings. May I help you, young man?”

The elf kept still, staring at her with intent. “What’s your business here?”

Maybe this could be useful, she thought. “I’m looking for someone, actually.” 

“Really?” He sneered. “‘Cos you’ve been going in circles for the past half-hour…”

Smart. And suspicious. “It’s not someone easy to find,  _ lethallin... _ ” she answered.

As she expected, the eleven word made the young man in front of her flinch. “I’m not your  _ lethallin _ , stranger. Go back to the woods.” 

Varja sighed and closed her eyes. “ _ Ir abelas, lethallin _ . I’ll be out of your way, then.”

She was about to turn back on her heels when she heard a whistle coming from the very same alley the young elf had emerged from. From behind a wooden door out came an old lady, leaning on a knotted wooden staff. 

“Cam,  _ da’len _ , don’t be rude to the lady."

The young elf, now red faced, huffed and moved to the side. The old lady waved at Varja, inviting her into the alley. Varja smiled. “ _ Ma serannas, hahren _ .”

“You hear that, Cam? Those are called good manners - you should learn some.” she said to the young boy, as he escorted Varja through the wooden door hidden in the alley. Inside was some kind of tavern, filled with many elves drinking and chatting with each other. When she entered everyone freezed for a second, but as soon as the old lady touched her on the shoulder to lead her to a table, everyone went back to their business. Cam helped the old lady sit down into a heavy wooden chair, while Varja sat down in front of her. “Thank you, Cam. You can go.”

Cam seemed unsure. “You sure, Velanna?”

“Yes,  _ da’len _ .” She answered. “I’d like to talk to this woman alone.”

The young elf nodded and gave Varja a cold stare before moving away towards the tavern’s counter, where he sat on a stool and kept looking at both of them from a distance. “You have to excuse Cam’s bad manners,  _ lethallan _ . He’s always been wary of strangers.” said Velanna, smiling. She looked as old as Deshanna, if not older. Deep lines marked her bare face, and both her eyes were cloudy, as if sight was abandoning her. “As you imagine, we don’t get many  _ peaceful _ visitors in this part of town.”

“I can imagine. Wariness can be a virtue.” she answered.

“How true. But now you might need to excuse an old lady’s curiosity: where did you learn such a beautiful pronunciation, dear? Your  _ elvhen _ sounds...incredible.”

It did. She had a very good teacher, after all. Probably the best.

Long nights spent repeating words over and over, all clad in warmth and candlelight. Papers rustling and tongues moving, sounds coming out wrong, and wrong again. Then, all of a sudden, right. Kisses and stifled laughter. 

She inhaled deeply and pushed the memory away.

“ _ Ma serannas _ . I’ve had many opportunities to improve it during my journeys.” she lied.

Velanna smiled again. “Ah, a traveller. How marvellous. What brings you to Minhrathous? This is not a very forgiving place for our kin, as you have probably noticed already.”

Varja thought for a second, and looked at all the wary faces crowding the tavern. “Yes. But I needed to come anyway.” A pause. “I am looking for someone.”

“That, I heard. Maybe I can help you.” Velanna’s clouded eyes were now slightly squinted, as if she was trying to get a better look at her guest. 

“Who is it that you search for,  _ lethallan _ ?”

Varja looked around once more around the dimly lit tavern - at who was supposed to be her people, her kin, hidden in the dark, slaves and servants. She imagined what they were after, what they wished for. She saw it in Cam’s eyes, staring at her from the counter. She had seen it in the mirror, once, a long time before.

Revenge, freedom - and rebellion.

“A wolf.”

Velanna looked at her with her cloudy eyes. And smiled.


	7. Bare Faced

The view from so high up was breathtaking. 

Varja sat on the edge of the roof of an abandoned warehouse in one of Minrathous’ many ports. From up there she could see all of the shipyards that crowded the coast of the island, as well as the bridge that led from the mainland into the city. The one she had crossed just a few weeks before. Time had really flown by. 

She didn’t expect to stumble so easily into a group of Solas’ agents in Minrathous’ slums, as she didn’t expect to gain a meeting with them shortly thereafter. 

_ You know I’m not going to let you go alone, right? _

Dorian wasn’t far away - hidden in some alley, listening carefully to his crystal, the same Varja kept hidden under her garments. With him were a few of his guards, while others were scattered nearby, ready to shoot arrows if the necessity arised. A precaution her friend had insisted on.

She didn’t feel as nervous as him, because by then she had grown pretty close to Velanna, and somehow trusted her - a detail that made what she had to do difficult. 

She was to meet one of the “wolf’s friends” - an elf that had fled the city a few months prior and had clearly joined the Dread Wolf’s secret army.  _ A good lad, you’ll see. _

So far the  _ lad  _ hadn’t shown up. “Are we sure he’s coming at all?” Dorian whispered over the crystal. “He’s well beyond fashionably late by now…”

“He’ll be here.“  _ I hope _ , she thought. She was positive no one in the tavern could have recognized her as the former Inquisitor, not with the tinted hair and the concealed prosthetic arm. That and the fact that her face wasn’t very known between common people, and especially people from the outside of Ferelden and Orlais. Thankfully, the ruse wasn’t supposed to last much longer, for the meeting was to end with the wolf’s agent in chains - if everything was to work as she hoped it would. 

But the delay was starting to make her queasy. 

Dark clouds gathered on the horizon, and a warm and soft wind was blowing from the sea, anticipating a storm. The sky was moonless, and the only light came from the lamp posts along the docks, guarded by a few lazily patrolling guards. 

While she was watching them come and go, she heard Dorian’s voice from the crystal, whispering: “Someone’s coming.” Varja stood up and turned around, just in time to see Cam, the young elf from the city slums, climbing up the ladder on the opposite side of the roof. Behind him followed a hooded figure, unarmed and clad in what looked like dalish leather armor. Varja looked on quietly, waiting for them to approach her - but the couple stood still. The hooded figure talked first.

“A bird told me you wish to join the wolf, yes?” The voice sounded female, with the dalish accent of an elf who wasn’t used to speaking Trade very often. 

“That is correct.” Varja responded, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible.

She knew Dorian’s archers were out there somewhere, aiming at the elves’ heads, waiting for just a bare signal of distress from her. They were not expecting a second elf, but for some reason Cam had tagged along the recruiter. Varja hoped the archers remembered her orders of avoiding bloodshed, and applied it to the young elf as well. 

“My friend here” said the recruiter, gesturing at Cam “said you speak a pretty good elvhen. Almost too good, apparently.”

Varja shivered. “I’ve been told before.”

The recruiter removed her hood, revealing a bare face such as hers. A dalish with no vallaslin - one of many by now, certainly. 

“What was yours?” she asked her, smiling coyly.

She felt a pang in her stomach. Something was wrong. 

“I never had one.” She answered, as she clenched her left fist. She felt the crystal warming up under her garments and knew the signal had come through.  _ Get ready _ .

The recruiter barely stifled a laugh. “We both know that’s a lie.”

All of a sudden, Cam sprinted towards her. With no time to react, she watched an arrow strike the young elf in the neck. He fell a few metres in front of her, gurgling and spitting blood. She felt like screaming: at him, at the archers, at herself. But it was too late for that. 

The recruiter looked up from Cam’s body and smiled once more. “Hello, Inquisitor.”

She then summoned a barrier to protect herself from the arrows that started to come down, and fade stepped in Varja’s direction. It caught her by surprise, and she barely dodged a knife hit that simply scraped her arm, instead of stabbing her in the stomach. She focused and summoned all of her energy to create an ice wall between herself and the recruiter, gaining time for her barrier to extinguish. But a flame burst through it, melting it down - and suddenly they were fighting with daggers, dodging and hitting as quickly as possible. A dance of knives.

There were no more arrows flying, and Varja heard fighting noises in the distance. They had fallen in a trap, she and all of Dorian’s archers. She kept parring the recruiter’s hits, trying to keep her at a distance, while gathering new energy to cast another spell. Her adversary was relentless, swift and ruthless - but she was also very blunt and careless. Varja kept her swinging and, when ready, hit her with a mind blast - sending her flying on the other side of the roof. 

The recruiter landed on her back, hard, but got up on her knees immediately. Her face was now covered in blood from a nosebleed but, nonetheless, she smiled. A red smile.

Varja heard Dorian’s voice coming from the crystal, echoing in the distance. 

“Behind you!”

Varja turned around and faced Cam, white as chalk and covered in blood, the arrow still sticking out of his neck. His eyes were dark and empty.

She felt a sharp hit, just above her hips - and another, and another.

Before she knew it, she was on the ground, staring at the sky above her. It was covered with dark clouds, filled with rain. She heard thunder in the distance, but every sound was starting to feel muffled, and distant. 

The last thing she saw before blacking out was Dorian, towering over her - screaming and casting spells with his staff. She saw tears on his face. 

She was crying as well.

And then she slipped into nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! Sorry, I guess quarantine got to me. Anyways, hope you enjoy - I'm planning on finishing this as soon as possible, and I've got some stuff planned that I can't wait to share! Happy reading and stay safe!


	8. There and Back Again

It felt somewhat like dreaming - and yet slightly different.

It had been a very long time since she had faced death. First in Haven, under dragon fire; then in the blizzard, lashed by the freezing wind; and finally in Skyhold, facing an undead Magister. Her wounds always healed, but every trip forth and back from nothingness had been weirder and weirder each time. And now she was right in it, once more, surrounded - enveloped, almost.

A room filled with liquid dark light, a silence so deep she could feel it gliding over her skin. 

She waited for the hallucinations to begin - as they did before. 

One time it was the death of her parents, an event she had no direct memory of. Another was being swallowed whole by the breach in the sky, and then tore apart by furious demons. After such visions came pain - and with it, the awareness of her body. Then sound, voices surrounding her, sometimes screaming, sometimes whispering. Healers, usually. And by then, she was back to life once again.

It seemed that almost dying was not much different from having nightmares. Confusing at first, then scary, then painful - and then you woke up. Hopefully.

She waited in the dark room for what felt like years - the silence outstretching endlessly, like a river flowing downstream, towards an imaginary sea. As she thought of waves, water rushed in the room, filling it out with unexpected violence. Sound came back with it, a loud swashing that filled her ears. 

_ Death by drowning this time, _ she thought.  _ How wonderful _ .

She waited for the pain to come, but this time it didn’t. She felt nothing. Just water, filling her ears, mouth, lungs, stomach. Darkness closing in on her.

_ Is this how it ends? _

A windswept valley covered in grass and flowers, surrounded by mountains. Clear sky and white clouds above. 

She had seen this place before, but it looked like a polished version of a memory. A painting. 

Where was the water? And the darkness? And the silence?

All gone. 

_ Where am I? _

She looked around for a sign, for something to explain what was happening. When she moved her stomach hurt, small needle-like aches all over. She lowered her hands and found them covered in dry blood. A low sob in the distance, a scared voice.

_ Am I dead?  _

A voice answered in the back of her head, loud and clear.

_ You are. _

She turned and saw him, standing a few meters away. No hood this time, no armor - just him, in his plain clothes. A pang in her chest, a familiar feeling. Was she ever gonna get rid of it? Of the pain? He haunted her dreams, and now he haunted her death as well. There was no escape from it, she thought.

She was too tired to be angry, to scream at him, to tell him to go away. She just closed her eyes and started sobbing quietly, kneeling on the grass.

The voice grew closer, like a whisper.  _ You’re not gonna be dead for long, trust me. _

_ I don’t trust you _ , she answered, hiding her face behind her hands. 

He was kneeling before her, not touching.

_ I know.  _

It was too much. She looked up, tears streaming down her face.  _ Do you? _

His face was a shadow of a memory. He wasn’t really there with her, among the dead, in that inbetween place. Not the Fade, somewhere different once more. As much as she wanted the world to make sense, it always surprised her with something new.

He didn’t answer her question. 

_ You think you know everything, but not this - this pain I carry around. It smothers me. _

He closed his eyes and sighed.

_ I think we share more than you think. _

She wanted to hit him, but he was just a shadow. Pointless violence wasn’t much useful against shadows. Still, her teeth felt poisoned, ready to bite. 

_ Remember when you sent off your friend? Do that. Set me free. _

He stood up, quickly. Annoyed - or maybe hurt? Either way, it was a small victory.

_ I can’t do that. _

She stood up as well. Tears were no longer streaming down her face, and her body felt electric, charged with energy. Her anger became more and more sharp. Sharp teeth and tongue. _ Can’t or won’t? _

Again, no answer.

_ I think I know the answer to that one. _

He looked at her, his eyes filled with something she could not grasp exactly.

_ Hang onto your anger, if it makes you feel better. I earned it. _

Fury filled her. Dark clouds gathered in the sky, calling for a storm. She was about to snap at him once more, but all of a sudden the pain in her stomach grew unbearable. She fell on place, gasping for air. Her surroundings started to fade away, him included. He said something, but it drifted off in the wind.

With pain, life came back.


	9. What the Wolf Knows

It took a few weeks for her to fully recover, even with the help of Dorian's skilled healers. 

As she lay on the pristine bed in his guest room, she could hear the sounds of revolt from the streets of the city coming through the open window. 

An elven uprising had ignited in the slums and Port of Minrathous - an organized feat that had already claimed the lives of quite a few Magisters and Altus, some killed out in the streets, others gracelessly in their beds as they slept. What followed had been a violent and bloody urban warfare between the rebels and the city guards. Circle mages called to raise flames all over the city, using blood magic to fight back ambushes and straightforward assaults. 

By the time she was able to stand upright on her own, the revolt had turned into occasional skirmishes in the city slums. Still, the body count kept rising, especially between slaves and elves. 

She prayed for them, at night. To whom she prayed, she wasn't sure - but the words spoken at funerals back when she was with her clan came back to memory, and effortlessly flowed out of her lips. She was tired of Tevinter, and of Minrathous especially. She longed for the forest, for Deshanna's cave back in the Free Marches, for her rooms in cold and now abandoned Skyhold. 

One night she dreamed hosts and hosts of elves, all crammed up in underground halls. All of their faces marked with different vallaslins. Then came other elves, bare faced, and they removed the tattoos for them, one by one. The joy in their eyes was immense. Freedom, at last.

And then, war. 

She had woken up with tears streaming down her bare cheeks. 

She understood the elven rebellion in Minrathous. She knew exactly where it came from and what ignited it in the first place. She felt it every time Orlesian nobility stared her down, glancing at her pointed ears. She heard it in the whispers and the names thrown around at banquets and councils. All of while she was Inquisitor, nonetheless - the savior of the South. It didn't matter. When she was just a young Dalish mage, it took the form of insults thrown at her by city merchants and other humans. It was in the eyes of bandits raiding her camp, killing her people without as much as a flinch. 

It was hate. It had always been. 

Never mind the shape it took each time, the different shades and consistencies - it was always hate she felt. And now, it was hate that drove Tevinter’s elvish slaves to rebel. Hate for their masters, for the people that sneered and spit at them in the streets, that refused to help them and pretended to not see their struggles. She understood, more than anything else in the world. She could feel their pain, the growling heat of rage simmering in the belly, the raw and unfiltered desire for revenge. She felt it too, when she hunted down and killed all of the bandits that had killed her parents. Hate feeded her thirst for revenge, and sustained her for most of her youth.

So when Dorian informed her that Velanna, the old woman that had lured her into the Wolf's trap, had been captured and was soon to be executed, she knew she had to talk to her. 

Dorian and his guards escorted her to the city prison, now overflowing with captured rebelling elves, waiting to be made an example in the capital's squares. She tried to avoid their gaze, keeping her eyes on her feet as she crossed the dark and damp corridor along the cells. Right at the end, in a small cell with no window, was Velanna, pale and sickly - but with a fixed smile on her face. "Ah, how wonderful. I'm glad to see you're alive and well, Inquisitor." 

Dorian scoffed, and Varja had to ask him and his guards to wait for her outside. After some protest, she was left alone with the old woman. 

"How did you know it was me, back at the tavern?"

Velanna laughed at her, with compassion, as you would with a child. 

" _ Lethallin _ , do you really think you can fool anyone with that hair and the fake arm? We knew it was you the moment you stepped in our side of the city…" 

Varja said nothing, and let shame wash over her. Shame at her own excess of confidence. 

"We all know your faces. Yours, and that of your close companions. Know your enemy, my dear, that is of utmost importance for our battle. You most of all should know." 

"Your battle? The rebellion, you mean?" 

Again with the condescending laughter. "The rebellion is just a pawn on a larger board, Inquisitor. The game has just begun, really. And you're already a few moves behind." 

Varja sighed and got closer to the cell bars. She leaned in toward the old woman. "What has he promised you? Freedom, a new world, a return to glory? Do you know what you're fighting for, really?" 

Velanna stood up and got closer as well, still smiling. "He promised nothing, dear. He asked, and we joined. Because it is the only thing we can do, the only way for us to make all of this right. The suffering of our people has been going on for too long, and it is time it comes to an end. Even if the end means death and suffering for ourselves and our enemies."

Varja felt her eyes swell up with tears. This was her people - suffering, hurt, angry and desperate. And she had to stop them.

"The end of the world won't bring justice to our people, Velanna. All of this will be for nothing."

Velanna closed her eyes and sighed. 

"Justice is far gone, Inquisitor. All that's left for us is revenge. Let us have it. Abandon your hopes for a better world. I did, many years ago. Even before the wolf showed up at my door." 

Varja didn't know how to answer. A heavy weight sat at the bottom of her stomach. The resignation in Velanna's voice was something she had heard a few times in her life, and she knew it led to a bottomless pit from which one did not climb up anymore. 

"  _ Ir abelas, hahren _ …" 

"  _ Banal abelas, lethallin _ . We all walk the  _ Din'hashiral _ \- some of just us take longer to realize it." 

Varja stood up and took a deep breath. 

This was all his fault. The result of his lies, of his mistakes, of his regrets. So much blood stained his hands now, even more than before. He took hope from her people, and turned it into hate. As much as she shared the very same pain Velanna felt, the kind that makes you want to burn everything to ashes, she wouldn't give into it. 

Not now, not here. 

"I'll save the people, even if they don't want me to." Varja turned to face the cell once more. "This world is still worth saving, I know it.  _ I feel it _ . Maybe I'm delusional, or mad, or just a fool. But I know I can change his mind. I know I can stop him. And I'm the only one who can…"

Velanna smiled one last time. "Oh, he knows,  _ lethallin _ . He knows."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty convinced Lavellan would be extremely conflicted in fighting against her own kind, even when they've turned into fanatics ready to set the world on fire. It's another suffering that's inflicted upon her, and we know who's responsible. Guess I'm a sucker for angsty impossible relationship, how wonderful.


	10. Mirrored Fears

She had never seen so much snow before. An endless white stretch. 

The wind scraped the peaks of the mountains, blowing off some of it away into a thin mist. 

Even the sky was pale, a bright, almost blinding white which made mpossible to look up without squinting. She lowered her fur lined hood down to her nose, and kept marching on, head low. 

Knee-deep in cold snow, she wondered what soul could bear to live in such a place. To see nothing but white for months, wind the only sound to keep you company. To shiver every waking second, unable to move away from the fire for more than a few hours. Her body was definitely not made for those temperatures, and it kept reminding her with each step forward, aching in every imaginable way. 

Only a madman would live here, she thought. And so it made sense she would come there to look for one. 

They climb the mountain together, just the two of them. He leads the way and she follows. The snowstorm is relentless, but his barrier protects them both. How much longer? She asks, shouting over the wind. He does not answer, instead he turns around and grabs her hand, to help her keep moving. She holds on to it. She trusts too much, maybe because it never occurred to her that it was possible to lean on somebody else to carry you forward sometimes. Years spent relying only on herself, distrusting every soul she encountered, wondering how they could hurt her if they got the chance. Being alone turns a person to stone: cold, harsh, barren. 

What happens when they let someone in is a painful and scary thing. And she feels all of it, through the heat of his hand wrapped around hers in the blinding white of the snowstorm. 

When she reaches the ruin, it looks as it did years before. A great fallen gate, shiny spires that stretch toward the sky, stairs that go deep into the earth. She follows them and reaches what once used to be a great hall. Half is buried in snow, collapsed into the side of the mountain, the other opens up to a sliver of sky, some snow falling through. She treads the same steps and comes to the end of the hall, in front of an empty brazier. She can't light it up anymore, so she lights up a soaked torch with a small blaze from her fingers. She covers her eyes and waits for them to get used to the new sudden light. When she looks up again, a golden mosaic stares back from the wall. 

What is this? She asks, marveling at the shimmering drops of gold that marks the eyes of mysterious figures on the wall. He smiles, as he always does when she asks a question. A very ancient thing. He threads his fingers lightly on the surface, focusing on the small details. She steps back to get the whole picture. Veil fire burns in the brazier, and the golden figures look like they're dancing. Elves. Lots of them. She says. He nods approvingly. Arlathan, and all of its people. 

A picture of dead people, staring down at her with empty golden eyes. This time she spends more time looking at each and every one, hoping somehow to find him in that crowd. Among his own kin. A family portrait of some sort. She turns around and scans the room for signs of recent movement, but she sees nothing of sorts. On this side of the veil, at least. She lays down her sleeping mat, casts some protection spells and wards around the entrance, all while considering the irony of it all: what he lied about doing, she now did for real. Going to sleep in abandoned ruins, and witness the past through dreams. A ridiculous thing, but effective. Where to chase a fade walker if not in their own territory? 

They lay next to each other in their tent. The veilfire has been put out, and the night has fallen. She is cold beyond reason, too tired to ward some heat to her body through magic. He feels her shivering beside him, and gets closer. His embrace is warm, on purpose. She does not know how he never runs out of mana, or energy for that matters. He only sleeps to dream, as he told her multiple times. What an awful thing, she had answered. Sometimes closing your eyes and getting away from it all is really the only comfort in life. The shivers stop, but he does not let go of her. They had never been this close for this long before, not like this. Sharing the same sleeping bag, alone. They kiss and she thinks this time, maybe, he will not turn back. 

She crosses the Veil with ease. The hall looks different in the Fade. It's shiny and new, the golden walls shimmering by the fire of the braziers. She sees a table that was not there on the other side of reality. On it, open books and papers. The writings are all in elvehen, so she can't read them. But she's not there to discover his plan. She knows it already - or, at least, she has a good guess. She crossed into his territory to find him, to talk to him face to face. About war.

And yet, even after all this time, she feels the knot in her chest tighten with every minute passing, while waiting for him to find her. 

Her body aches for him. She's never wanted someone like this before - burning, almost painful. Between each kiss she expects him to back away, and so every single one feels like a stolen gift he's granting her. She hates it - this want. This desperate need. He holds this power over her like a captor, retreating whenever he fancies. She does not want to depend on him for anything. Or on anyone for that matters. 

But his body pressed on hers, the smell of his skin, and the sound of his suffocated moans drive her mad. 

She knows he feels it as well. Every time he withdraws it's with agony and extreme self control on his part. She wonders what holds him back but does not dare to ask. Until he backs off once again, leaving her gasping for air. 

It doesn't take long for him to find her. He enters the hall without a sound, but she knows regardless. He puts out the braziers, and the walls stop shimmering. It's dark, and she shivers from the cold. 

"Are you trying to scare me?" she asks. 

"It would take much more than darkness to scare you, Inquisitor. I know that much." he answers, flatly.

She turns around and waits for her eyes to adjust to the dark. She sees his shape, at the end of the stairs, at least five steps away from her. He still does not dare to get closer. 

But she does. 

With each step forward he tenses up, and with him the air surrounding them. Just two steps left and he holds up one hand. "I do not think it would be wise to get closer, Inquisitor." he says, quietly. 

"Don't call me that." She takes one more step. Now she sees him clearly. He looks tired, dark circles under his eyes and hollow cheeks. She reaches out to touch his face, but he grabs her wrist. It hurts, in many ways. 

"I know what you have come to do, vhenan. But I can't let you." 

She brings her hands together to grasp his, and he eases into her grip. He sighs and brings them up to his face to kiss her right palm. The one he took from her on the other side of the Veil. 

"I think you can." she says. 

She wants to ask him back. To beg him to stay, to kiss her again, to love her. But begging has always disagreed with her. And so she lays in the dark, trying to catch her breath. 

"I'm sorry." he says, whispering.

He lays perfectly still by her side, arms brushing. He never said sorry before, so she doesn't know how to respond. But curiosity wins her over. 

"What for?" she asks. 

"For being a coward." he answers. She brings herself up to sit and looks down at him. He rests an arm over his eyes, as to protect himself as he's saying this. "You deserve better than someone like me."

"Like you?" 

"Scared. Old. Full of regret." 

She smiles. "I am scared too." 

He lifts his arm and looks at her. "I never felt like this before."

His face drops. 

"Even so, I want you. We can be scared together. You can keep your years and your regrets, and I'll keep my pride and fear. But we don't have to do it alone. I don't want to. Do you?“

He sits up and kisses her. It's sudden, and it takes her breath away. She leans in, and when he moves away he embraces her. He never answered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break! Life took over - but now we've got some DA4 news and I'm all hyped up again. Enjoy!


	11. No Gods Left

As she holds his hand many voices whisper in her ear, quietly. They tell her of plans, of subterfuge and discussions held in dark rooms. Others speak of power, of lures and weaknesses. Some even dare to say things about love. 

Love gained, love lost, and then ravaged by reality. Sweet memories turned to dust and pain - no recollection untamed by it. 

The knife crushed between her skin and leather feels cold. She knows it is useless, yet she carries it anyway. He embraces her and she is acutely aware of the steel pushing into her hip bone, of the roughness of his new, unfamiliar clothes, and of the constrained desperation with which he holds her at the lower back. His breath is heavy against her neck, and she strokes the back of his head while trying to keep her composure. The Fade always felt realer to him and faker to her - an ironic reversal of roles in which she finally holds some power over him. 

She unsheath a hidden knife from her left wrist, a small, lethal thing. It shines in the light as she aims it at the base of his neck. She holds her breath. 

This is not how a God dies, she thinks. 

He holds her tighter and whispers in her shoulder. 

"Do it." 

She shudders, feeling as if he just read her mind. She fastens her grip on the knife, closes her eyes. Tries to speak, but no word comes out. 

"If someone has to try, I'm glad it is you. I would not die by any other hand but yours." 

She frees herself from the embrace, sliding the knife from the back of his neck to his throat. A weight settles in her stomach as she watches him staring with tired, dark eyes. His hands rest on her shoulders, still gripping as if she was a rock in a storm, keeping him from drowning. 

"It won't work…" she whispers, more to herself than him. He smiles. 

"It is worth a try." 

She no longer knows if he's being honest or tricking her. After all, the Fade is his realm, not hers - and his presence unsettles her even after all this time. Maybe he is testing her, to see how far she is willing to go. She's now discovering how much he'll allow, as well - she didn't expect to get this close on the first try. No one did. The weariness in his voice is probably the reason why. He sounds - drained, spent. It's different from the last time she heard him speak, weaker. 

"You'll bring yourself back as you did with me…" 

He sighs and caresses her cheek. 

"As much as I'd like to have such power, it was not me who brought you back to the living. You did." 

She thinks of the darkness, of the deafening silence and the water rushing in. His voice in the distance calling to her. So, he was really there. He came to her as she died - or maybe she summoned him herself out of sheer will. Any other way, she wasn't able to escape him even in death. 

It seems only fair it would be the same with him. Tied by the same, cruel fate. 

She lowers the knife to his chest, holding it with both hands. Tries to push in, but tears fill her eyes. His are glassy as well, and she can't stand the sight of it. 

"Please…" he pleads. 

She chokes up, and stabs him in the heart. He doesn't make a sound, and instead holds her face in his hands, lowering to kiss her gently on the lips. His tears wet her skin. 

They collapse on the floor together, and she holds him in her arms as he draws his last breath. As she stares at his still body, his blood on her hands and the taste of his tears in her mouth, she feels empty. An emptiness that fills her and weighs her down. Every breath she takes stings in her throat, down to her chest, cold and painful. 

This is how a God dies. In the arms of a loved one, tired and betrayed. 

She blinks and he's gone. The underground hall as well, with all its glittering mosaics. The snow's all that's left, and she sits right in the middle of the storm, crying her heart out. 

When she wakes up in the cold hall, every tear is spent. The knife's still in her sleeve, the other one pushing at her hip bone. The snow keeps creeping in from the ceiling, and the sun's going down quickly. She gets up and steps out into the now calm snowfall. The crystal at her neck glows, and Dorian's voice comes through over the wind. 

"Something's happened! They saw him, he stepped outside the hideout. They said he looked bad. Did it work?" 

She whispers into the clear gem. 

"Yes. It worked." 

This is how a God dies. 

But he's no God. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make what you want out of this. I left it pretty open to interpretation. Thank u for reading x


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